Dr. or Cake Maker, We Will Miss You!

Rebecca Miner, Student Writer for The Morgan County News, started her first week at Utah State University last Monday. When Rebecca came to us and volunteered to be the student writer and liaison between Morgan High School and the newspaper, we knew she must be special. She was interested in writing and knew that in journalism, she would have a great opportunity to learn and grow and receive some real-life experiences to put onto her resume as she went out into the world. Yes, Rebecca seemed to have it all thought out when she came to us…
Before we met Rebekah and just knew that there was “some senior girl” that wanted to write for the paper, we were a bit skeptical and not really in a place to give her a lot of guidance and training. She would be on her own and have to take a lot of initiative since we were going to be in the organizing and learning stages of the newspaper business ourselves.
After things had calmed down just a bit and the winter holidays were over, we agreed to meet with Rebecca. When I first met Rebekah and her mother, Karen, I could tell that they were very close to each other. Even though they made no physical contact, it seemed as if they were leaning up on each others shoulder for support, but it didn’t give off a vibe that either one of them were weak or insecure…in fact, it came across as exactly the opposite.
As I got to know both of these ladies better, I realized something. On that occasion when we all first met, I made the natural assumption that maybe the leaning in for support from the other feeling I was observing was coming more from Rebekah than her mother. After all, it was Rebekah who was in the position of possibly being judged and rejected for a potential job. That is one of the most nerve-racking things adults do…stepping right up to the plate to sit right across from a potential boss and have ones skills and capabilities judged.
I soon found a lot more about these two women and I have to respect and admire them both…but they are very different from one another which must add to their relationship, not subtract. I have son that is a lot like Rebekah….very wise for his few years of life, more responsible than most of the adults I know, and able to help me as much or more than I ever help him.
My first impression of Rebekah was that she was very petite and maybe a bit shy… In only 2 or 3 days, I discovered that she was not shy at all… She was respectful and listened to other’s say all they had to say before making any judgments and prematurely objecting to anything said… Wow, I don’t know if she will be able to be a journalist or not…of course, I jest…
Many people think that the good communicators are the one’s who are continuously talking to everyone and anyone around them…but, I know from observing these people, and from when I made the same mistakes, that the best communicators and leaders are the one’s who make the least disruption and noise… yet, they are the one’s who quietly go about doing a lot of work and doing a lot of good.
Rebekah is this type of person and so much more. She brought so much ability and positivity to our small staff… She came in every week to see if there was anything we wanted her to write about at the high school… she was either ahead of us and had started getting the scoop, or she had several ideas to submit for our consideration of her writing and our approval….she had not one bad or even remotely “off” suggestion…
In the end, after working together for a little over seven short months, Rebekah had submitted 35 articles and every single one of them was well-done. Beyond doing her job of providing news from the high school, she also took on photography and we printed about 15 of her pictures.
As Rebekah left Morgan last week to become an Aggie in Logan, she went with many high school achievements under her belt. We were so honored to meet and get to know Rebekah…We made her promise to stay in touch… As long as her mom and other family are in Morgan, I’m hoping we can see her every once in a while…maybe even send her on assignment…. Who knows, maybe she will become a publisher of a newspaper someday…maybe even this paper.
She can do anything and everything… and I can tell, she would genuinely enjoy do it all…not for fame or money, but to gain knowledge… an amazing curious intellectual this girl is… Gee I hope we treated her well enough… The more I think about it, I can easily see her as high up as she chooses to go… She’d get my vote…but, again she doesn’t even seem aware of her great ability and great potential to go far…
Really, she only talked about future goals in terms of what she wanted to learn about someday… I swear, each and every time we asked her about her future career goals, it was something different than the time before… way different in some instances… one week she said she wanted to go into medicine and the next time we asked, she was really excited that maybe she could even be a great baker and cake decorator… Wow!
We hope that Karen will keep us posted on her progress…There is no doubt that Rebekah will go far in this world… a truly amazing young woman and outstanding human being.
You impressed us with your maturity, professionalism, self-motivation, and skill…Whether you are a brain surgeon or a cake maker… or anything in between, you will make this world sweeter wherever you go. We will miss you…